Hospitals operating at dangerous capacities: report

By Natasha Wallace

Not one hospital in Sydney is operating at a safe level, with patients waiting longer for elective surgery and in emergency, the latest AMA Public Hospital Report Card says.

Australian Medical Association NSW president Brian Morton said average waiting times for elective surgery patients in NSW had "significantly increased".

This meant that one in four patients needing semi-urgent surgery, such as the removal of a breast lump, were being put at risk, Dr Morton said.

"Our public hospitals are being forced to operate dangerously above capacity, compromising patient safety and quality of care," he said.

He said all major metropolitan hospitals including Westmead and Royal North Shore were often forced to operate at 95 per cent capacity or higher, which is well above the benchmark of 85 per cent.

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Dr Morton said that a cash boost of $448 million by the Federal Government in 2007-08 had clearly not improved public hospital performance and partly blamed NSW Health for cutting its expenditure by $7 million for that year.

He said that, to keep up with inflation, NSW should have provided about half a billion dollars in funding.

The performance of emergency departments was worse for 2007-08 than in 2006-07.

Only 66 per cent of category three patients (urgent, to be seen within 30 minutes) were seen within the recommended time in 2007-08, compared with 71 per cent in 2006-07.

Also, the percentage of category two elective surgery patients (recommended to be seen within 90 days) seen within the recommended time was 75 per cent for 2007-08, an increase of only 1 per cent from the previous year.

The median waiting time for elective surgery has increased by four days to 39 days.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Andrew Pesce said it was the worst AMA report card ever.

He said the Rudd Government and the states needed to be more transparent about where extra funding was going because it was not improving patient care.

Even worse, the true waiting lists were hidden because many patients were waiting even to get on a list, he said.

The NSW Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt said at no time had the NSW Government decreased funding.

"There’s simply no truth that any point in time has the NSW Government decreased funding for health. Every year in cold hard cash terms we have increased funding."

She said the current $15.1 billion budget was a 10 per cent increase upon the previous year but did not have figures immediately available for 2006/2007.

She said the hospitals performed well, given an increase 8 per cent over the past year in emergency department presentations.

"The NSW hospital system performs very well and the people of NSW can be confident that they get high quality and safe care in our public hospitals," Ms Tebbutt said.

She said the performance in category three had improved in the past quarter to 67 per cent of patients seen within the recommended 30 minutes and the figures for August showed that 88 per cent of elective surgery patients who were meant to be operated on within 90 days were admitted.

However, she conceded the median elective surgery wait is even higher than the AMA reported, at 40 days.

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The has sought comment from the federal Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon.